


I'll Be There When Your Reality Drowns

by Capesandshapes



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien immediately simps, Boats, F/M, I know nothing about boats, Rich boy and future trader Adrien, Selkie! Marinette, adrienette - Freeform, or the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capesandshapes/pseuds/Capesandshapes
Summary: A mysterious girl washes up on Adrien's deck.A Selkie AU.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	I'll Be There When Your Reality Drowns

The sea rose and fell, waves crashing against the rocks. The grey sky was visible through the octagonal windows of the town’s only pub, an uncharacteristic roughness to the tide that dissuaded others from venturing into their depths. As if the waves needed to do that job, the sky’s greenish hue should have been warning enough to the wizened seamen that that night was not one to go out. Plenty heeded it, crowding the space of the small pub atop the docks, wincing slightly whenever a shudder came through its wooden planks as a result of the wild sea.

Adrien sat on a stool to the side of the bar, hands gripping his pint tightly as he gazed past the bartender and out the window, his knuckles growing white from the pressure. It was his last night before returning home, perhaps his only night left with the ocean before he was stuck, honor-bound and landbound in a bustling city just in the center of France. Of course it had to be ruined like that, Neptune choosing to remind him that he couldn’t escape his duties, just like everyone else on the island did. He was not allowed another night in the crystal-clear waters of the island just off the coast of England, the fisherman had warned him that one final trip and he would never be able to leave.

No, he needed to be safe, he needed to stay away, he needed to go home- for his fiancée, for the future of his father’s trading company, and for his own sake. He’d been allowed this short time after his studies to get the adventure out of his system, he should have been thankful for that and able to move on. And yet…

“You’ll feel different when you’re married,” the bartender spoke. Nino was his name, and he’d tried and failed a hundred times to take Adrien under his wing and keep him out of obvious trouble. “The sea will call to you less.”

“Right,” Adrien agreed with a nod, digging in his pocket for a few silver to give. He’d already made up his mind long before Nino had spoken, the bartender’s voice only ringing him back into concentration on what he needed to do.

Knots and directions flashed through his head, what little he had learned in his past month of renting a boat leaking out. One last time, he would indulge just one last time.

* * *

The sea was no calmer out on the water, yet it provided a welcome reprieve from thoughts of responsibility and the impending future. The cantankerous dockman, Plagg, had only offered a knowing nod when Adrien had asked to go out despite the weather. Perhaps he knew that Adrien was a sailor at heart and that to say goodbye was like leaving a piece of him behind. Plagg had long stopped sailing as his wife grew old and his desire for luxury had long begun to outweigh his want for adventure, but surely he understood Adrien’s need to be one with the sea just one last time.

The water was calmer far off the shores, still rolling but no longer the crash of cutting waves against themselves. Adrien was appreciative of the swell, the way that the boat would move upward for a matter of seconds, then slowly roll back down. The water wasn’t as crystal clear out far, clouded by the endless depths, and the ebb of jade waters was a beauty Adrien would not forget.

It was dangerous, but when he was a family man, married off to a woman he’d never met and saddled with a business he never wanted, he would think of those waves and how enchanting they looked for one simple night. The only one out on the seas that day, he could claim that they belonged to him and only him.

Sails furled and the bow of his short boat remaining above the water; he let himself drift idly through the waves, the shoreline still well within distance. Most anchors were at least a two-person job anyway, and there was no way that he could convince anyone else to go out with him.

Which was why he was surprised when he heard a large splash on the port bow, the boat dipping slightly as water rolled onto the deck from a wave that had cut too sharply.

Adrien’s eyes widened as he jerked his head from the shore far behind him to the bow, rising to his feet suddenly as he feared what was to come. He quickly crossed the boat, rushing to look out over the upper platform to the lower deck, relief hitting him as he saw the water roll off the wood.

That relief left when he saw what it left in its wake.

He rushed to the railing nearest the stairs, mouth gaping for only a moment as he looked at what was one deck, quickly swinging himself on a baluster to run down the stairs to the deck, his mind gone blank.

A girl, it had been a girl.

Laying on the deck, a speckled grey cloak of some kind around her shoulders and her skirt splayed out around her, a black-haired girl’s body rested limp, soaked to the bone.

 _No, no, no._ “Miss!” He yelled, dropping down beside her, his hands grabbing her shoulders and hauling her from the wood, pulling her above his bent knees and giving her a short shake.

No response.

Oh god. He lowered her to his lap, his fingers frantically pressing against her neck in search of a pulse. Just a hint, anything, that was all he needed. Terror gripped him as he looked down at the young girl’s beautiful face, jaw clenching as he finally steadied himself enough to press at the place between neck and jaw.

He barely felt her heart’s beat when she began to sputter, jerking in his arms as rough saltwater exited her lungs.

 _Not dead, thank god, not dead._ He felt himself release an audible exhale as she began to gasp, her eyes finally opening. Blue, impossibly so, like the depths of the water before him in the calmness after a storm.

They only grew wider when she looked at him, pulling back so quickly that her head hit the deck, her hands rising to protectively grasp at the clasp of the caplet around her neck.

He flinched as she thunked against the wood, hands reaching out as if to catch her but finding her motion too sudden to grasp.

“You,” she began, her eyes very quickly looking from him to the sea then back again, a sort of stunned expression on her face. For a moment, he thought she would say he saved her, though he did nothing of the kind if you thought about it, but she merely continued to gape; the woman looked at him as if surprised, astounded that he could exist. Perhaps that was the appropriate response, all things considered. She likely fell from a shipwreck onto his deck or so other large miracle. How else would she get there?

Really, he had no words.

“The storm, I…” she seemed to fumble, eyes moving every which direction. Perhaps she was trying to explain herself, but Adrien didn’t mind. Shipwreck survivors didn’t need to tell tales, not in situations like theirs.

“I have dry, warm clothes below deck.” He was a rational man, and that was the rational way to respond. A soaked young woman washes up on your boat, and one’s priority should be drying her in some regard.

Her fingers tightened around the fastener on her neck, her voice responding, “I won’t… I…” She messed with the cape and he realized it to be important to her, a family heirloom or a gift of some kind.

“You can keep that on. I mean, it’s wet but I have pants, shirts, and jackets below deck. I’m sure you could stay warm and keep it with you. Even if you do take it off, I promise I won’t take it. You can hide it, I won’t go looking, and you can keep an eye on me if that makes you feel better. It’s just you and I on this boat…”

“You won’t take my cloak?” She repeated.

“Naw. I mean, it’s beautiful, gorgeous even,” he’d be blind to miss the sleek silver of it, the way that some of the furs on it almost seemed to glisten like moonlight, “but I don’t want to remember stealing a cape from a girl on my last night.”

“It’s sealskin.”

“It’s yours,” he reaffirmed.

She blinked, and he wondered what sort of place she came from, on what island did others steal from strangers so desperately in need.

Still, though she was wary and he hardly knew her, when she looked at him he thought how much he would like to remember her. Pink lips, dark eyelashes, clear blue eyes—how beautiful, and what a waste he should only know her for so long.

He stood, hand out to her to help her to her feet, face begging her to take it. She did, her small fingers feeling cold within his in a way that made him wish to ball his fist around her. He would be quick then, he figured, get her dressed as soon as possible and maybe offer his blanket below deck and whatever else the old man might have stowed away so that he may have warmed her sooner.

But she did not follow him when she rose. No, she kept him rooted in place, instead choosing to ask him, “What is your name?”

She mustn’t have been too pressed. “Adrien.”

“Adrien,” she repeated, the slightest of smiles on her face.

“And yours?” He responded, just as glad to ask; he had a devastating need to know.

“Marinette.”

“Marinette,” he said, and with her name, he almost felt whole. Her eyes gleamed at the mention of it, and he was sure that looked every bit the fool when he said it with such reverence.

“You are kind, Adrien,” she said, slowly stepping closer to him, “and I shall remember that.” Her lips brushed his cheekbones, and if he did not look like a fool before, he surely did then. She positively radiated at his response, his hand reaching up to touch where she had once been, an all-consuming love for the ocean somehow doubled.

Yet her fingers disentangled from his, her head slowly shaking as she pulled away. Disappointed filled him, and he was left only to stare as she backed near the railing, proclaiming, “I very much hope that we shall meet again.”

He was left defenseless as she leaned back, feet leaving the ground and body moving towards the water. A swell of the waves, his footsteps rushing toward starboard bow… and she was gone.

The softly speckled tail of a seal, curiously patterned just as her cape was, vanished beneath the waves as he watched. After that, how could he ever go home? The sea had done its part in convincing him, just as the fishermen warned, one last time out on the waves and he could never go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine, if you will, Adrien basically Captain Ahabing it out in the water and never going home because a girl gave him a kiss on the cheek once.
> 
> Think this is weird? Cool. Send me a request for something normal that you'd like to see from now until Sunday and you might not have to be confronted with my weird aus. I'm doing warm-ups before I sprint for other things, and I always love filling requests.
> 
> If you like my writing and you want to see more, feel free to drop a request in my ask box at [ my tumblr blog ](https://capesandshapes.tumblr.com/), where I will try to be as active as possible in fulfilling them. All of my fanfiction will be posted to my AO3, so stay tuned.


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